These are vaguely themed around a philosophy class I ran for students who had mostly never come across cryptic crosswords; by the time I shared these five, I’d already given them six clues, and at least one student managed each of them (even a particularly hard one).
I think these are very gettable, though one will be a stretch for people who don’t know cryptic clues, one would send me scurrying for Google, and one’s a bit cheeky.
- A varied group putting time into a journey from Lima to Quebec via Great Britain. (5 letters)
- Party rules without energy: An insult! (4 letters)
- Release William Short? You can choose. (4+4 letters)
- Add something to the factor of 10 to the 9, 4, and approximately 2.71828. (4 letters)
- Dribble in sports class (to a degree). (3 letters)
Answers below.
A varied group putting time into a journey from Lima to Quebec via Great Britain. (5 letters)
- L (Lima, in NATO phonetic alphabet) to Quebec (Q, in the same). G(reat) B(ritain) in the middle. ‘Putting in’ time, here as t, gives us LGBTQ, ‘a varied group’.
Party rules without energy: An insult! (4 letters)
- Rules without e(nergy) is ruls, which, if we ‘party’ (or anagram) becomes slur, ‘an insult’.
Release William Short? You can choose. (4+4 letters)
- A synonym of ‘release’ is ‘free’, while William [but] short is Will, giving us ‘free will‘. If you have free will, ‘you can choose’.
Add something to the factor of 10 to the 9, 4, and approximately 2.71828. (4 letters)
- Something to the factor of 10 to the 9 in SI units is giga- or G; 4 in Roman numerals is IV; approximately 2.71828 is Euler’s constant or e. G, IV, e, is give, a rough synonym of ‘add’. (If we subtract, we take away, so if we add, we give.)
Dribble in sports class (to a degree). (3 letters)
- Cheeky, but to dribble (in your pants) is to ‘pee’; sports class is ‘physical education’ or PE. Put p[ee] ‘in’ PE, and we get PPE, which is ‘a degree’ (and happens to be the degree most of my students are taking).
Josh Milburn 